Chris McDaniel’s campaign manager and Mississippi state Senator, Melanie Sojourner, took to Facebook on Independence Day – not to express her patriotism but to swear she will never ever endorse Thad Cochran. In a litany of complaints spanning three paragraphs, Sojourner expressed bitter disappointment and acrimony with the avowed enemy firmly in her sights.
Sojourner then linked her Facebook message to The Minority Report’s Conservatives, Remember Mississippi which calls on all conservatives to defund the National Republican Senatorial Committee. "This will get their attention like nothing else" declares blog author, Ken Cuccinelli, President of the Senate Conservatives Fund. It will - though possibly not in the way Cuccinelli intends.
The blog’s introduction lays out a point-by-point complaint of the Tea Party’s grievances against the establishment with the focus on Thad Cochran’s runoff campaign.
The list begins with:
> We must remember that the establishment urged Cochran to run against McDaniel even though Cochran wanted to retire.
Then tosses in a mention of Reince Priebus:
> We must remember that the establishment opposed McDaniel even though, according to RNC Chairman Reince Priebus, McDaniel would win the seat for Republicans in November.
Refers to the "gun-grabbing" Michael Bloomberg and devotes three points to "race-baiting" before concluding with:
> We must remember that Mitch McConnell (R-KY) — who vowed to "crush" conservatives "everywhere" – raised over $800,000 from Washington, DC lobbyists and other GOP senators to help pay for Cochran’s attacks against McDaniel.
> We must remember that the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) continued to oppose McDaniel after he won the most Republican votes in the primary, and then spent $175,000 of party money to defeat McDaniel in the runoff.
Contrary to appearances, Cuccinelli, in a highlighted sentence, accuses the establishment faction of tearing the GOP apart. This contradicts the widely-acknowledged perspective that it’s the Tea Party who launched a sustained attack on Cochran’s camp, an attack which has included the shameful exploitation of Cochran’s wife and a courthouse break-in on the night of the primary election. Cuccinelli mentions neither of these events. Instead, he encourages anger and urges vengeful action in another highlighted sentence:
Conservatives should not fund a Republican committee that recruits liberal Democrats to defeat constitutional conservatives.
In the cock-eyed style of Grover Norquist, Cuccinelli calls upon all conservatives to sign a pledge to defund the NRSC and links to the
pledge page. Signatories can also “like” the pledge page on Facebook and link it to both Facebook and Twitter. The final line reveals that the pledge is organized and paid for by the Senate Conservatives Fund with the disclaimer that it is not authorized by any candidate or candidate’s committee. At the time of writing, the pledges numbered 8,987.
Cuccinelli’s contentious contribution marks a sharp escalation in this internecine feud. No longer is it confined to the Republican disputants in the Senate race in Mississippi. The Senate Conservatives Fund has taken it nationwide and targeted the powerful NRSC. In the race to November, the GOP may well find itself hobbled by this fierce battle within – and that can only be good news for Democrats everywhere.
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